Renovations - Part 9

So here's my excuse for not posting lately (or at least one of the several excuses): Nan and Grandpa came down from Sydney last week to visit and help out while Joseph was in Canberra having his tonsils and adenoids removed. Poor Grandpa was kept working literally the whole time he was here, because we needed to build a retaining wall outside the extension, as well as a little walkway thing with steps leading from the extension to the carport. We got heaps done, but I feel so sorry for Grandpa coming all the way here only to work the whole time!

Here's a photo of part of the retaining wall we made: 

 

More retaining wall:

The walkway thing and steps we made - doesn't it look good? Actually, the builders made the little balcony thing that's directly outside the door, but we made everything to the right of that. :-)

Another view of the same thing, so you can see the steps. Grandpa is a genius: he made all this without even writing down a plan! It looks so professionally done, too. I can't wait until it's stained and finished!

The builders have been working, too. The gyprockers came as well and gyprocked the whole room. You can't see too well from this photo, but 2 windows have been added, and the door has been put in.

A view of the outside - it's going to look so good when the wood is stained and everything! I think it's going to fit in really well with the rest of the house (in looks, that is).

Sorry it's been so long since I've been posting regularly. Hopefully that's all changed now, as exams are over, I'm on holiday from MuST, I have no music lessons for 4 weeks, and most of our construction projects have been done. It's a good thing too, as I've got heaps of photos of little bunnies just waiting to be posted and enjoyed! Oh, and I'm going to a rabbit show with Caitlyn on Sunday, and we're hopefully showing our most awesome rabbit - so I'll let you know how that goes!

Until then, enjoy your week, and I hope you're looking forward to the holidays as much as I am!

Renovations - Part 8

I can't be bothered to write much of a description of the building progress this week, so excuse the brevity of this post. Hopefully the photos will tell you all you need to know. The electricity box has finally been moved, but now the builders are waiting for the order of windows to arrive, so they've just been doing odd jobs while they wait.

Here is a photo of what it looks like from the inside: that sliding door is about in the middle of the room, so you can have a rough idea of how big it is.

This is the little balcony thing the builders have added this week. The main door to the house will be here. We think it fits in really well with the rest of the house. This was taken from "the orchard."

From the garden: (I like this one! =P)

From the carport:

Renovations - Part 7

Not much to report, as the builders have only been once this week. However, it looks like quite a lot has been done, since they put up all the insulation where the walls are going to go, as well as the roof. I found out that, much to my disappointment, the roof blocks the view from my window (the window in front of my desk). Instead of looking out and seeing a garden and a silver birch tree, I now get to see a big green roof. I guess I have no right to complain, though. I can't wait to see the extension finally finished! In the contract we were actually told it wouldn't take more than 7 weeks... well it has been over 7 weeks now, so hopefully it won't be too much longer.

Anyway, without further ado, here are a couple of photos. This one was taken from the garden:

From the carport:

This one was taken from the roof outside our bathroom upstairs... don't ask.

Apologies for my slackness in posting the last week. I have been extra busy, and I'm likely to be equally busy until about mid-June, so I may not be able to post as regularly as usual. I'll still do my best, though.

Happy Weekend!!

Renovations - Part 6

The construction site looks really good now!! It actually looks like a room is being built, which is so exciting! As usual, the builders did pretty much the whole frame while I was gone on Tuesday (for the last 4 weeks everything they've done has been while I'm in Canberra at MuST - I think they must have a grudge against me or something... maybe it had something to do with my taking photos of them working while they poured the concrete...). Anyway, they've made some real good progress this week, and I have included the original photos of the house before any construction began just so you can see how much it's changed over the course of a couple of weeks. This photo was taken from the south side of the house:

About 6 weeks ago:

Yesterday:

Renovations - Part 5

So much for my predictions about the construction progress... I was totally wrong. The builders have done heaps this week!! The floor has been laid, and it looks so much better!! Now everything looks tidy and orderly, rather than just holes in the ground or blocks of concrete. We are all really excited - it is so encouraging to see everything coming together.

Here is a photo taken from the east side of the house. This angle shows it the best, I think. The only trouble is that it's hard to include the full length of the construction.

From the backyard (on the north side):

You're probably wondering what's with all the upside down black flowerpots... you see, we've been playing handball on the new floor, and some of us were getting really "into it", even to the point of diving/sliding on the floor to get to the ball. Since there were metal posts sticking up around the edges, this was, as you can imagine, quite a dangerous activity. The solution was to place the flower pots over the posts, which, although somewhat unsightly, was effective

Finally, here is a closer view taken from the back door. As you can see, it didn't take us long to mess up the place! I kind of hope that the builders won't do anything for a couple of days, because we're having a lot of fun playing handball there at the moment!!

Renovations - Part 4

Not much to report this week. The builders haven't been here at all, so there hasn't been a lot of progress. The only thing that's changed is that the bricklayer came and - well, obviously he laid the bricks!! It looks a lot better now. The good thing is that it looks exactly the same as the bricks going around the rest of the house - hopefully when it's finished the extension will fit in nicely with the rest of the house and not look out of place. The bad thing (for me, anyway) is that the only construction that happened the entire week had to happen during the 1 day I was away all day!! So I missed out on watching it and didn't get to take any in-progress photos. I've always loved photos of brick walls being laid.

The first photo was taken from the backyard on the north side of the house. I've found that for now this is probably the best view to show construction.

From east side: unfortunately I can't get the whole thing in from this angle, but at least you can see it in better perspective. The electricity box is going to have to be moved before the builders begin laying putting in the walls, and apparently the electrician who is going to do the job is away on holidays for a couple of weeks... so I don't think the builders are going to do a lot of work in the near future.

When the truck came to deliver the bricks and a load of sand, we had to dismantle part of the fence so that the truck could dump the sand directly onto the construction site. We took down the whole section just behind where the pile of sand is dumped. At the moment it is only held by 2 screws - on on each side - because we think we may have to take it down again to allow direct access to the site. The only other way for vehicles to access the construction site is to go around behind the garage and through a small gap between the trees. A very small gap, in fact. Only the smallest of bobcats would fit through there, which is why we had to dismantle the fence so the tip truck could just tip out its load of sand through the gap.

Renovations - Part 3

Another whole week has passed, but the builders have only turned up here twice this week. Even then, they only did half a day's work each time. They must be very fast workers, though, because they are still right on schedule, and the foundations have been laid already! As someone said, all the work so far has been destruction, but now the construction has begun - and it is far more exciting to watch!

Here are a couple of views of the newly-laid foundations. I had taken a video of the cement truck pouring the concrete, but the video camera won't let me upload any videos onto my computer, so this will have to do for now.

From the backyard:

We did have a minor hiccup with the foundation laying, however. Joseph and Caleb were playing outside shortly after the concrete had been laid (already a recipe for disaster, I know). Even though they were "under supervision", they must have devised a cunning escape plan so they could explore the new construction. Joseph skillfully distracted the supervisor/babysitter (who won't be named, to save them embarrassment), while Caleb sneakily made his getaway and "explored" the new concrete, even going so far as to "test it." This consisted of depositing both feet into the concrete, until he was up to his knees in the stuff. He then took about 12 steps, dragging his little legs along in the concrete. By the time we discovered him, he had, as you can imagine, done considerable damage. Nevertheless, Dad managed to quickly grab a nearby board of wood and smooth out all the concrete before any permanent damage was done. Fortunately the builders weren't there at the time, or they may have been upset with us. Like the saying goes, all's well that ends well - we were certainly very lucky that everything turned out okay in the end.

Well, that's it for now. Sorry I didn't get to take more photos this time. Have a great week!

Renovations - Part 2

Even though the builders started working a week ago, they have only been here for 2 whole days. I guess that's because they have other projects that they are working on at the same time, and also because they are taking it a bit easier through the holidays. We also had a bit of rain last Thursday afternoon, which meant they couldn't stay the whole day but had to leave early.

Considering the amount of time they've spent here, though, they've made incredible progress. Most of the work so far has been dismantling the balcony (last Thursday) and excavating (Tuesday). There is a huge hole in the ground where they will begin laying the new foundation tomorrow (Friday). The cement truck is coming on Monday as well. Everything seems to be suddenly happening at once!! It is very nice to watch the progress, and anticipate the final product.

This photo doesn't show the excavations very well, but at least you can see how it is different with the balcony gone, and that the path has been pulled up. Also notice that the silver birch which was on the left side of the house has been removed. You can't see it from the photo, but there is also an apple tree which was removed.

The next 2 photos show the excavated area. The first one is a side view, from the north side of the house, and the second photo was taken right from the side door.

As you can see, the builders dug quite deep, so you can imagine there was a LOT of dirt that came out of there. The builders were kind enough to take all the dirt around to the back yard for us and even the whole yard out, which would have been a tremendous job. They even went to the trouble of levelling the surface perfectly and compacting it down. Our yard is a lot nicer for it, as the last photo shows. All we need to do now is sow a lawn - and try to keep it alive this time!! We haven't had much success with lawns since moving to Cooma... with locust plagues, weed infestations, constant drought, infertile soil, regular frost, 3 cheeky alpacas who keep getting into the yard, and a family of keen soccer players, it will be interesting to see if we can manage to get any grass to grow this time!

Renovations!

Yay! The renovations have finally started at our house!! We've been planning to have an extension built on the east side of our house for quite some time now... but when it suddenly happened we all felt somewhat unprepared for it. The builders arrived on Thursday morning, and in a couple of hours the entire balcony on the east side was completely dismantled, so the progress has been really good. It should be completed in about 7 weeks.

Here is a photos of what our house looked like before the builders started. I will [try to] post a photo each week of what the house currently looks like, so you can watch the progress.

I can't wait for it to get finished!! I don't think any of us can. The extra space will be extremely useful, especially for when we have guests over.

I know this isn't much of a blog post, but I'll leave it there today, because I don't want to frighten off anyone by doing a tremendously long post like last time...

God bless.

Matthew.

Homes

I was doing some random thinking yesterday (as happens fairly frequently in my mind), and it struck me how little so many of us really appreciate the place we live in. When was the last time you stopped to thank God for giving you the wonderful home that you have?

Our home on Bidgee Road is about the nicest little place in the country. We are conveniently situated on a 7 acre block only 10 minutes from town. The Murrumbidgee river passes by not far from the house, and we can walk to the river through the bush in about 10 minutes. We are surrounded by mountains and hills, so the scenery is amazing. Although there is bush all around us, we have been blessed with 6 acres of open fields in which we can keep alpacas and play soccer.

Another bonus is that we are only a step away from Canberra. It takes only 1 hour to travel from Cooma to Canberra. This has been a blessing many times over. I am now doing a music course at the ANU School of Music in Canberra, and every week as I travel up there on the bus, I am so grateful that God placed us where he did.

On the other hand, we're not far away from the coast, either. It only takes 1½ - 2 hours to get to Tathra from here. Not that we ever go there, much as we'd like to, but it's nice to know that we're not far away. 

Finally, as you presumably already know, Cooma is the capital of the Snowy Mountains, which means that in winter we aren't far from the snow! Fortunately we are just close enough to the ski fields for convenience, but not so close that the town gets swamped with tourists over the skiing season. While I'm not exactly a skiing/snowboarding fan myself, everyone else loves it, and we usually end up going a couple of times a year. But we don't always have to go to the snow - sometimes God sends it to us!! Most years we get at least one good snowfall, and it is always very exciting! The sensation when you get up in the morning and look outside only to see a pure white blanket covering everything is indescribable. Below is a photo taken by Joshua of our house in the middle of a big snowfall.

I think I'll leave it at that then. Hopefully I will be able to think up a more exciting topic next time I decide to blog.

Don't forget to thank God for the place he's given you to live in today!

Matthew.